“I’ll let Ma make us something and bring it over. You’re tired enough as it is. You don’t have to cook me a meal on top of everything else you do, baby girl. Uh, tonight?” he asks uncertainly and I feel my heart crumble with disappointment.
“I can’t. Uncle Jim is scheduled to video call me and the man talks my ear off whenever he gets the chance.”
“You still making him grovel, Mel baby?”
“Just a little. I got him to stop being such a freaking bigot and he actually donated a good amount of money to a charity for disadvantaged minority kids. So…”
“You’re milking him with guilt?” He laughs, making me blush.
“You know it. How about tomorrow? I get home early, round five,” I say shyly, feeling awkward suddenly and for no other reason than this all feels new and nothing like what we had before.
“That’s great, baby girl,” he says, standing with a grimace and looking so lost for a moment, it breaks my heart. “Can a friend kiss a friend?”
Please do.
“Sure.”
My eyes are closed and my lips are puckered so fast, I almost scream when his lips touch my cheek and linger for the briefest moment before he pulls away and grins down at me.
“See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll see ya tomorrow,” I echo, staring at the door after he walks out with only the slightest limp.
Will and Lonnie at least have the decency to keep themselves in check for ten whole seconds before they’re making smooching noises.
“Y’all want toilet water in your beer this time, fellas?”
They shut up immediately and I spend the rest of my day with a stupid grin plastered all over my silly face.
I smile all day and am still smiling when I get home and find Miah sitting on my doorstep with a box of chocolate.
“Hi?”
He blushes and looks away before grinning down at the ground and meeting my confused gaze.
“Hey, Mellie. Can a brother come in and chew your ear off for a minute or two?”
“Okay? I guess. If that chocolate’s for me and not just you.” I laugh, unlocking the door and ushering him in with a wave.
We get all the way through a few pleasantries and I’m on my second block of chocolate bliss when he finally loses patience and gets to the point.
“Please tell me he came into the bar today and didn’t chicken out again.”
His words throw me for a minute before I register what he’s actually saying.
“He came in, Miah.”
I’m smiling even as I say it.
“That’s good. Good.” Miah laughs and it transforms his face to the point where I see Roman in him.
“Are you here to tell me what a bitch I am and that I should give him a chance? Or are you here to look at me with recrimination and ask why I didn’t wait to break things off?”
Roman and I spoke a lot when we were together, and the one thing that he told me, with a lot of glee, was that he was closer to Miah than he was to any of his brothers.
I know that they have always been inseparable, and that he views the guy as his best friend. The Miah I see before me, without all the stress and anger, is exactly the guy Roman described to me. I love knowing that they’re all finally able to be themselves once again.
“No, Mellie. No. I’m here to talk to you and make sure that you keep Roman at arm’s length. See, I love my brother, and there’s nothing I would not do for the man. But he can be an idiot sometimes, and when I see it, I call it.”
“You think he’s being an idiot? Why?” I ask, going to the open kitchen to make us both some tea because it seems as if this is going to be a little more than a few minutes of shooting the shit.
“Well, for one, he put you in danger to get what he wanted, and I am not down with that. I never was. When a man loves his woman he would never do something like that.”
I don’t want to hear this. I want him to sit here and tell me that Roman and I belong together and that I should give him another shot.
“Don’t get me wrong, Mellie. I do think he loves you and I know that he’s been having a hard time of things lately because he misses you, but he’s a little too used to getting his own way. It’s about time a woman gave him the finger.”
I snort and turn off the burner when the pot starts whistling and finish off the tea while thinking over what he’s saying.
“This Roman, the one who came to the bar and spoke to me, is the guy I remember. There were times I doubted that he really existed, you know?”
I’m still dealing with some residual guilt for ever doubting Roman, but as time keeps passing, and I see the events of the last few months objectively, I’ve let it all go.